45o
The Green Bag
graph and of all dealings therewith, was to be kept by the clerks of the escheats. The pres ence of a majority of the officials was to be es sential to the validity of any transaction in any way affecting the rights of the parties, and the keys and seals were to be so distributed as that the muniment chest should be always in joint control. How far these minute and stringent regulations were actually observed it is impossible to say. "The Jew's acquittances or assignments of loans were made out in the form to which he was accustomed in his dealings with his own people, and were termed s/arra, from the He brew shetar (memorial or receipt). They were written sometimes in Hebrew with a Latin tran script, sometimes in Latin alone, occasionally in Latin in Hebrew characters, and occasionally in Norman French. They were signed by the cred itor in Hebrew, and further authenticated by his seal. A starr of acquittance entitled the debtor to cancellation and deliver)' of the dupli cate or 'foot' {pes) of the chirograph, but was not valid unless enrolled in the Exchequer. It is probable that this was not the original rule, but it was already established in the middle of the thirteenth century; and hence transcript of these documents appear with frequency upon the Plea Rolls. It only remains to add that the debtor was answerable to the Crown upon an unregistered chirograph or a chirograph priv ily acquitted, and that, though executed with all due formalities, both chirograph and starr re mained impeachable for fraud, which, however, was hardly possible without collusion or culpable negligence on the part of the officials. "By this admirably contrived system the creditor was placed entirely at the mercy of the Crown. Henceforth, whenever the Barons were more than ordinarily hard-fisted, the King had but to order a general scrutiny of the Archae, and having thus ascertained the financial posi tion of his chattels, could proceed to talliage them with scientific precision, and, if they proved refractory, attach their bonds and persons until his demands were satisfied. During the scrutiny the register was closed under triple lock and seal,
and all business was suspended. The organiza tion within the Court of Exchequer of a separate tribunal for the trial of Jewish causes was the natural sequel to the establishment of the Archae. The connection, indeed, of the Jews with the Court of the Exchequer was probably as old as the Court itself; for as chattels of the King, holding all that they possessed at his bare good will and pleasure, they were in a permanent con dition of indebtedness to the Crown, and were therefore in all civil cases properly impleaded in the forum of account; but of the specific Scaccarium Judeorum or Judaismi, Exchequer of the Jews or Jewry, as it came to be called, records there are none before 12 18, nor any trace of its existence until the last year of Richard I. We then (1198) encounter for '.Custodes Judeorum? ' Wardens of the Jews,' who are associated with the Barons of the Exchequer, and are in fact Barons in all but the name." The question of jurisdiction was a frequent bone of contention between the Justices in Eyre aud the Justices of the Jews, the latter claiming exclusive jurisdiction and the former refusing to recognise this claim. However, " the Justices of the Jews were at all times subordinate to the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer, who corrected their ' excesses', and with whom in cases of exceptional difficulty they were accus tomed to confer. ... In short, the Exchequer of the Jews, though it had its own seal and sepa rate staff of officers, was not so much a separate Court as a branch of the Great Exchequer, in vested with a jurisdiction never very precisely gradually defined, and tended which to become, never became, exclusive though of thatit, of the King's Court." It is significant, however, that the court fees for Jews were higher than those charged to Christians. Want of space forbids quoting at greater length from Mr.Riggs' interesting study; but the above extracts indicate vividly the position of the Jews under the Plantagenets, and — what is of es pecial interest to the student of the law — show some, at least, of the effects of these conditions on the legal system of England.
